Dashboards. WTF!

Configuration Frontend
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I am getting increasingly frustrated with Dashboards.

I just want to know how they work and how I can control what is, and what is not shown, and when and for who on what device.

Fairly fundamental for a frontend I would assume?

I have a fairly simple ‘user environment’: Two people, four devices. One mobile each, one PC and one shared laptop.

I use yaml exclusively.

I cannot for the life of me understand how to no longer use the built-in Overview dashboard which frankly for anyone who has used HA for more than about a day seems to me is completely useless.

I have different finely crafted ( :grin: ) dashboards suitable for ‘full size’ screens and for mobile devices.
How do I make sure the correct one is displayed?
I also want a different one (my own System Overview) to be displayed for me when I’m on a PC/Laptop.

Simple?

Although I know from elsewhere that petro says it was requested a lot I don’t know who actually thought forcing the same dashboard on a user irrespective of device was a good enough idea to change the status quo.

And whilst I am absolutely with tom_I in not wanting those useless default dashboards appearing on my lists that is the least of my Dashboard issues for now.

All I would like is some docs that are clear concise and actually explain how things work because right now I don’t think they do.

This is a bit of a rant and you are more than welcome to call into question my intelligence (if backed up by facts) or any of my points (If backed up by decent rebuttals), but please don’t even begin to start with the boring old chestnuts of:-

  • “this is free software so just get on with it”, (I have for many years, thank you)
  • “if you don’t like it contribute to change it” (I would if I could and I do/have in other ways)
  • “it’s easy enough to update the docs yourself” (I have in the past but in this case obviously I can’t, clearly they don’t make any sense to me so where would I begin?)

Those kind of responses are such a waste of everyone’s time.

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I am chuckling about the “anyone”… as it seems not to include me.

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Nobody did actually.
It is not being forced on users as such, it is just being the only option, because the more advanced and complicated solution with a user or device specific dashboard have never really been implemented.
You can use Layout card with mediaquery to act on some device specifics, but the best option for you is probably to make a specific user per device and then set default dashboards for each user, which I think is now possible.

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I don’t think you can.

the user has the option to set which dashboard is displayed by default when they log in but that is completely in control of the user themselves. If they want to access every part of HA they can.

I’m not really a betting person but if I was I would bet that the request for admin controlled user access would likely top that by a large margin.

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I’m not being rude because you are only saying it the way it is but this is quite possibly the most ridiculous solution to a problem that shouldn’t even exist.

Yeah I get that and despite the absurdity1 that is not even the problem. The problem is I am having trouble getting HA to even show the dashboards that are chosen as the default.

My real problem is that I can’t work out what is needed to make it all work in a predictable fashion.

For example, the docs are very vague (IMO) about ui-lovelace.yaml. Is it required in all cases? What does it do? What happens if I don’t have one?

How do I set a default dashbord because I am getting very inconsistent results for user/devices.

1I also get that user access control is difficult so I’m accepting of that (to a degree :grimacing:)

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Nobody knows how dashboard selection works; people just pretend. I pray a lot to Machine God, and sometimes his grace preserves the selected panel for several days.

Happy New Year! :slight_smile: :robot:

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I agree.

They used to be better when your entire lovelace UI was written in yaml. But since the new standard is configuring via the UI now the docs for the old ways are very limited if not entirely missing. I tried not too long ago (last year maybe?) to find some yaml docs for the dashboard for a question I had and I was unsuccessful.

but that said all of my lovelace is in yaml so maybe I can help at least a bit.

yes*.

*but it’s only yes if you use yaml for configuration. if you use the UI it’s not needed.

But I believe you can also create dashboards via the UI even if you use ui-lovelace.yaml for your manually configured dashboards.

it’s literally the yaml configuration for your manually configured lovelace UI

then you can’t create yaml based UI dashboards.

I’m not sure I can help much here as I only have one dashboard that I use for pretty much everything. It is broken up into different tabs/views within that one overview dashboard.

as far as I understand it the new system requires you to either select the dashboard that the user wants to use from within the users profile (bottom left in the sidebar and select the logged in user there) or just leave it at system default. But TBH I have no idea where that “system default” setting is set. it’s just there. and since I never change any dashboards (I have only two regular users and my wife pretty much refuses to look at a HA dashboard and I use the same dashboard on all my devices - pc or mobile) I’ve never even looked there until today.

Since the 2025.12 release the dashboards are linked directly to the user. they used to be linked to the device. So if you want a user to have a different dashboard depending on the device then you need to create a different user for every dashboard/device.

hopefully I’m helping you and not being dense on what you are asking. :smile:

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Funnily enough this is exactly what my situation is. Or maybe was, it’s early days but the whole reason for this post is because I too used to:

It got so ‘bad’ that I bought a few cheap RF433 remote control buttons off aliexpress so she could control the heating, irrigation and a few other things without needing the app.

Then I realised it was ridiculous and maybe if I made the app more approachable she might use it. I’m very happy with what I produced, she likes the look of it and signs are good that it might get used, …

…if only I could set up her phone to land on the right dashboard.

I’ll be honest, I was little concerned when I first posted this. Rants don’t go down too well here (perhaps reasonably so) but I am glad that even if it is only a few others, I am not alone in thinking the docs for Dashboards are frankly a disgrace compared with the rest of the HA docs which over the years have actually got pretty good.

You have helped a little (mostly in just confirming or otherwise some things I thought I knew) but honestly my post wasn’t really very well written to elicit real help. To be honest I’m not even sure what to ask anymore.

I know about the user profile and I share your bemusement at what “system default” means but I’m not sure you’re right about ui-lovelace.yaml because I didn’t have one for a while and everything still worked (I use that word loosely). I wondered if not having one might have been part of the problem and whilst reinstating it did seem to have an effect it didn’t solve anything and it all still feels very random in it’s actions.

I cannot set the default dashboard in my user profile without it always reverting to simply ‘Dashboard’

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Despite this, my mobile phone lands on the dashboard I designed for mobiles as I want it too and my PC lands on the useless(sorry @EndUser :wink:) Overview dashboard.

So how does that work?

:man_shrugging:

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I know it’s not a part of the question but as an aside I try really hard to make it so that she (nor I for that matter) doesn’t have to open an app to control anything.

and since she’s probably looked at the app a handful of times over the last 8 years I think I’ve been fairly successful. :laughing:

smart switches are the norm so we can just walk by a light switch and turn it on (or not) as desired.

as I’ve just recently said elsewhere a well designed smart home works organically without needing to open an app, wave your arms in the dark at the motion sensor or constantly yell at a voice assistant.

So for me a “pretty” dashboard isn’t a high priority. 99% of the times it’s simply informational when I take an occasional quick peek at it. So I can get away with one dashboard for everything.

but now back to the regularly scheduled topic… :wink:

And I assume from the statement above that you “use yaml exclusively” that also includes your lovelace config? If that’s the case then where is the yaml stored for all of your lovelace ui?

in your configuration.yaml do you have the following config lines:

lovelace:
  mode: yaml
  .
  .

Where is the thing called ‘Dashboard’ defined? is it in yaml somewhere or via the UI. I am fairly sure it’s not a system generated thing since I don’t see anything like that anywhere in my system. So it has to be defined somewhere.

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My overview dashboard says it was created by the system but I know for a fact that I’ve configured it myself and it’s not auto-generated - indicated by the fact it says it resides in ui-lovelace.yaml.

I guess I should verify that you are actually on the 2025.12.x release, correct?

TBH, I’m not quite sure yet.

are you logged in to both devices with the same user?

try creating a different user (so one for PC and one for mobile) and try selecting a different dashboard for each user.

maybe when you log in to each device with the same user you are somehow reverting the default dashboard selection to the other undesired dashboard for that other device.

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A Picture says more than an essay …or how was now
Anyways, notice the 3 dots to the right, choose what ever Dashboard you want
And as for the “Overview” you can “take Control” and wipe it, use it as a Test-view or whatever, And move it down to the buttom of the left-panel-menu

NOTE: If you click n hold, top-left corner above the left-panel-menu you get a pop-up where you can sort and “Hide Dashboards” in the Menu … im not gonna tell you how, just poke around and you’ll find out

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An entire rant tht does not fit on my screen while there is nothing keeping you from having a totally yaml Overview dashboard with whtever layout you like that is everybody and every device’s default, under your full control. It is simple as hell, I’ve been doing it for years and I explained it all over this forum about 20 times, but I’m sure as hell not going to repeat it under this rant. Aside from the fact that it is now also very possible to make any other dashboard the default.

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If you understand somewhat how the dashboard engine works, you’d know it is impossible to accomplish your above statement. The dashboard engine is a mish-mash of bolt-in spare parts (some broken), work arounds and hacks. You need to combine multiple different “languages” (YAML, Jinja, Jscript, CSS / HTML, Markup, etc) which are not made to work with each other but HA has smooshed them together and that is what-we-gots.

Many of us have great Dashboards that ‘work’; but yes it is painful and time consuming, and is the worst ‘design methodology’ (because I don’t think there was any real planning to it to begin with). But I use ton of AI to write fancy stuff to do everything, and a ton more, than you posted about. It requires a lot of custom code and 3rd party integrations to make Dashboards worth more than ant poop. Its not great but will it change, nope.

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@finity
Thanks for all that and I agree entirely with all of the first ‘non-scheduled’ section. Hence the buttons and remotes. My mobile oriented dashboard is mostly informational but things like the heating, irrigation and car (EV pre heating etc) are all now controllable in one place whenever any manual override or fine tuning is required.

And seriously, thanks for the pointers and guidance but it is possible that a big missing chunk of the story has been pointed out (see below). A chunk that I don’t think is documented and to me and my HA usage pattern was fairly well hidden.

Before I move on, briefly…

Yes

Yes

I now think (see below again) that it is just a placeholder put there by HA. It’s a shame the placeholders or maybe default is a better term but that gets confusing depending on context look like they have been selected. Just like the entity name when editing a entity.

Yes

Indeed it does and thank you. Eventually I found this screen. I am not sure whether I have ever seen it before because I tend not to ever need to go to the Settings menu except for Integrations and Add-Ons. I wonder why this is not mentioned anywhere in the docs?

I’ll play around with this whole new avenue of exploration, thanks.

@Edwin_D Thanks for that. Very useful. Perhaps I should have added to the OP

  • Please don’t be condescending, I have openly admitted this is a rant, I don’t need you to tell me.
  • Please don’t tell me you probably know the answers but won’t pass them on despite them being a simple as hell because you object to my rant (ostensibly because it appears to not fit on your screen).

None of your post was helpful.

I am starting realise that. It is a shame because Dashboards are a relatively recent thing in HA which were built form scratch to replace the previous very painful way of doing things. Dashboards despite their failings are a hundred times better than the old way. I just want something that explains how they work and how I configure them!

Me too. I have a couple of very fancy ones, if I don’t say so myself :wink:
Writing a decent dashboard is not my problem.

It does!

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I totally don’t get why people here think it is ok to be abusive and know it. Apologies at the end do not help. You got dismayed I returned the favor, complaining your time is wasted by it in your OP.

You’ve been here long enough to know I spend a lot of my time here helping people. In fact: every day of every week for four years on end (and you twice that). 99.9% of the time I’m polite when other people aren’t. Yesterday my frustration with rants on this forum got the better of me. It was late and I was tired. Sorry for my outburst. Really. Respect. I hope you forgive me and I guess I should have extended you the same courtesy yesterday.

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These Docs? Multiple dashboards - Home Assistant?

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I don’t either and I don’t think I was. But yes we can all get frustrated.
I almost gave you a shout out in my reply for being generally very helpful here so it hasn’t gone unnoticed.
No hard feelings here…

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Yep. you’re absolutely right
My bad.

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Don’t apologize, you did nothing wrong!

We are volunteering our time to assist our peers and somehow that has been forgotten. Folks are more than welcome to rant , but those voicing concerns should direct their feedback to HA’s official support.

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Yes, I could have counted to 10 and hit discard. I do that a lot lately. :wink:

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Maybe add the shout out next time!